How does the reopened Riverside Drive work?
Mayor Paul Young (middle), whose background is in city planning, led Memphis’ Division of Housing and Community Development during the tenure of former Mayor Jim Strickland. (Mark Weber/The Daily Memphian)
Riverside Drive between Beale Street and Georgia Avenue has had several different traffic patterns throughout the past five years. It’s been completely blocked off to cars, narrowed to two lanes and opened fully with two lanes in each direction.
Each of those variations has come with and without on-street parking, while the lot in Tom Lee Park was dug up as part of the park’s reconfiguration that debuted in September 2023.
At times, all of the options have been featured on different days at different hours, and each has generated some amount of controversy.
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Riverside Drive Paul Young Tom Lee Park Paul Chandler Subscriber Only2025 is almost over. Now is the time to support your trusted local news source.
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Bill Dries
Bill Dries covers city and county government and politics. He is a native Memphian and has been a reporter for almost 50 years covering a wide variety of stories from the 1977 death of Elvis Presley and the 1978 police and fire strikes to numerous political campaigns, every county mayor and every Memphis Mayor starting with Wyeth Chandler.
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